Have you ever had a great opportunity in front of you, but struggled to take that step forward? It could be a new job or promotion, a profitable business idea, a trip of a lifetime, or creating that thing you’ve always dreamed about. I like to describe it as, “the something that’s bigger than you” moment. Those moments are subtle invitations from adventure. They are loud voices in the beginning, but the longer the idea lingers in your mind, the quieter it sounds. You just keep thinking that if you work hard and stick with it, you will be successful and find what you’re looking for. Your collection of excuses keeps you from deciding to do it, and so you just sit there and think about it…and you keep just thinking about it. At this point, the only thing that keeps moving on is time. The point I’m trying to make is if you never get in the water, you’re never going to learn how to swim.
Some say life is a game. I think life is like a game. It presents activities you have to choose to participate in to achieve anything worthwhile. There is the opportunity to win or to lose. That goal is set before everyone whether they choose to see it or not. Life itself is learning how to get closer to winning every day. The challenge is figuring out what it takes to win and how to get there. There is always some struggle to overcome or problem to solve. Deep down, we all have this desire to have meaning and purpose.
Something we all have in common is that we all begin in shallow waters. We all have to learn how to walk, talk, listen, understand and respond. We all have to learn what our feelings mean to us. We all have to understand why we do what we do. Sometimes it’s scary because we need to learn how to survive in a world that’s full of monsters and dragons. As beautiful as the earth is, it has been corrupted, which is why life is not as easy as we’d like it to be. Our shallow waters quickly become cold and deep and if we’re not careful, we can drown. So, the process of learning is now our greatest need because if we don’t learn, we may never win. How can we win if we don’t know? And how can we know if we don’t try?
This is not a dress rehearsal. I think we only get one shot at this. In every game, at some point, you run out of lives. There’s a reason why it’s important to value every life you have. I just happen to think in this game, we only get one. That’s why life is so sacred and valuable. Your life is a gift and it means everything that you remain involved. I don’t think enough of us are told that we were put here for a reason and it’s worth figuring out why. It all begins in the most unlikely of places.
I remember when I was in college trying to figure out where I belonged in the world. I was attending Liberty University in Lynchburg. At the time, I chose to major in physical therapy because I was only interested in doing something in the medical field. If you have ever visited Lynchburg, it is a small and insignificant city. You really have to search for the beautiful parts of it. I was struggling to find a job that would work with my school schedule. I applied at Jimmy John’s and lasted two weeks. It was so unbearably boring that I quit with no back up plan. It wasn’t the best of situations…
My twin sister came across a summer job opportunity for us. I trust my twin sister always, so considering my lack of job options, I happily joined her. At the beginning, I didn’t quite understand the job. After my first interview, I learned that I was signing up for a door-to-door sales job. What would we be selling? Bibles. Picture Bibles to be exact. I was told I had the opportunity to make up to $8,000 in one summer! Of course I wanted to give it a try.
A couple months before summer began, all the students that were hired were required to attend the sales training. It was intense. At the time, I was still very shy and quiet. This sales training taught me the basics of selling, memorizing a sales script, communicating clearly, and making numbers work in our favor. Additionally, we were taught how to believe in ourselves, how to face conflict and discomfort, and how to be comfortable in uncomfortable situations. I received so much value from these trainings that have shaped me up until this day.
Summer came and we were divided into teams. I was paired with my twin sister and we were sent to South Carolina because our designated county to sell in was Spartanburg. What made this job unique was that we were required to find our own housing with a budget of only $250. If we wanted more money, we had to sell these Bibles. How were we supposed to find our own housing? Well…we had to knock on people’s doors and basically sell ourselves. I told so many people what I was doing and many of them thought I was homeless. It was embarrassing. Someone sent me to a church for help. I even helped another church plant flowers in hopes that someone would understand my goal to just sleep under a roof while I struggled to sell some Bibles. I should have slept in my car…but my parents were against that. They were against the whole idea of what we were doing but were somewhat encouraging. The housing opportunity I found was potentially very dangerous. If you could only imagine, I was getting desperate.
Eventually, my twin sister found a nice lady who would house us in her unique home. This lady was an artist which made us excited to stay with her until we saw the inside of her house. I had never been in a house so filthy, much less sleep in one. The whole night I was sneezing and blowing my nose due to the amount of dust layered on the windowsills. There is no need to go into detail, but it was so filthy we had to call our boss and ask for help with housing because at this point, almost a week had gone by. After a lot of work, we finally found someone who could let us sleep at night in a clean room.
The general goal every day was to wake up and become a local at a café or coffee shop, then find a neighborhood and start knocking on doors. All day, that’s what we did. Many people did not open the door in the mornings. The ones who did were far from interested or instead wanted to talk about everything except what I was selling. I received more no’s than I could have ever imagined. I got lost because we weren’t allowed to use google maps. I had one mom who loved the product even though I struggled through the sales talk. She ended up being the only person who bought a picture Bible from me. My goal was to do this job all summer, but I just couldn’t complete the task. I was struggling with my health and I was struggling mentally.
Although I failed to complete the summer job, this is one of my favorite experiences because it was the experience of a lifetime for the shy college kid I was. Who in their right mind decides to spend their summer like that? I got all the shyness beat out of me for good. I learned what impossible felt like and I learned what it really meant to do something difficult. I told myself at the beginning that if I can at least knock on strangers’ doors in a state I am completely unfamiliar with, I can do anything no matter what the outcome is. That is exactly what I took away from that experience: If I can try to sell bibles door-to-door, I can do anything.
I still have the notebook of all the sales training tips I learned. I refer back to it now and then. That experience was my introduction to sales. Unforgettable indeed! It makes for a great story and hilarious memories. If you want to level up in any way, don’t shy away from challenges. Those are opportunities which create bridges to potentially a better life or a better you.